72
by J. Random Lurker
Summary: FutureAU. In 72 hours, the fate of Earth will be decided. A deeply corrupted Dib struggles between duty and desire while weary Gaz must choose a side. And Zim pulls their strings... Rated for language, Zim&Dib SLASH, gore, criminal behavior. Ch 6 up!
1. Hour Zero: Dreams

** AUTHOR'S WARNING: CONTAINS -HEAVY- SLASH**

Take my slash warning SERIOUSLY for this one. I've tried to maintain things at a tasteful level, but this is still probably the most openly sexual thing I've written that I've allowed into mainstream viewing. This story does and will contain unsettling imagery and several characters, especially Dib, displaying VERY VERY questionable behavior. So, if slash squicks you DON'T READ THIS. Period. Hit back button NOW. Still here? Great! Welcome! The title is for the time period that this storyline covers- three days, 72 hours.

Of course, everything is Viacom's. I just like to -pretend- it's mine.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

** 72  
a meditation on the cost of love, Invader Zim style  
by J. Random Lurker  
**

**Prelude: Hour Zero (Dreams)**

I stare at the sheet of paper that my English teacher drops on the desk in front of me with dread.

Write about your dreams.

Heh, like anyone HERE cares about our dreams. Probably just an excuse to collect more data for a psychological profile so they can figure out which of us are going to move on to be serial killers after college and adjust the dosage of flouride in the drinking water accordingly.

Write about your dreams.

I don't like to -think- about the dreams I have.

The dreams where I'm struggling and he's got me wrapped up tight, his glove stuffed in my mouth and sticky tape wound over my face and my hands secured behind my back with hard plastic cables. Where bound and naked I'm put on cold scanners, probed and injected and tagged with alien devices fused to my skin and I can't do anything, ANYTHING to stop it and I'm so hard I could cut diamonds.

God, why do I think about this stuff?

Why does it turn me on?

Why is it still HIM, ten years after he left?

I used to dream about exposing Zim to the world. Now I dream about him peeling away more and more of me until I'm the one being exposed; an exhibit on permanent display to an audience of one in a glass case in a dark, humming underground laboratory. In my dreams, there's an alien in my class, sitting across the aisle, sneering at me with a special little sneer reserved only for me. In my dreams, I'm not utterly alone again, trapped on a planet of the stupid and homicidally insane.

_ ... He clamps his hands over my mouth and nose, pulling me against him, and I struggle for air; his hips grind against my ass and his legs push mine open wider. As I start to black out the last thing I feel is hot hardness pushing slow slow into me... as I go under he slides in... _

I'd always been a little bit obsessed about Zim. Sure, I admit that. It was hard not to be when he was SITTING there every day and I could SEE him and I knew what was under that stupid disguise of his: my future! My victory, my PROOF... everything I ever wanted wrapped in one shiny green package, red and green, just like Christmas. The kind of present that sits at the back of the closet waiting to be brought out last because what's inside is so much better and cooler than all the other presents that it HAS to be saved for the end.

Why, yes, I WAS the kind of kid who went looking for the hidden present the night before Christmas morning, why do you ask?

_ ... he takes me to class with him, I'm handcuffed and wear a padlocked leather gag, a collar with a chain on a long leash he holds, and I sit kneeling quietly on the floor next to his desk... _

I know that these stupid dreams, ironically, are ones that Zim would have appreciated. Him wanting to enslave mankind and all that, and me being his greatest enemy. (Heh, I say that now like it -meant- something...) And that makes it all even MORE horrible! As if it could possibly BE any more horrible.

It's all just dreams now.

I still don't know why he left. Maybe he just got bored with the whole thing. It just happened one day. He was gone and I searched and searched but I never found him again and I never recovered. Not entirely. There was a hole in me, and I did everything I could to stitch it closed but the hole ached, and kept on aching, because nothing could fill it properly except him. That's a cheesy metaphor and a worse innuendo but it's still the truth.

Don't think I haven't tried to replace him. I have. Boys, girls, science, drugs, videogames, TV- nothing. My body and what's left of my soul are crying one name and only one name over and over, a low unending hungry greedy moan. Zim. In the dark, in the shower, in the daylight, in the middle of lectures, in my sleep, in my bed while I'm trying to make myself come.

_Zim..._

At least while he was here, even though we hated each other, we weren't apart. We were a little clique of hate, the presidents of spite.

_ ... he appears in the hallway just past the cafeteria with a laser of some kind. I run at him, tackle him with my shoulder and knock the gun out of his hand. We struggle, cursing at each other, rolling around the hall, bruising fast. He tries to reach the fallen weapon and I pull his hand back. He curses me. I pin his arm to his side, then shift my legs around to get the other as well, my thighs squeezing tight to either side of his chest. His twisting and straining under me are delicious. I lean down and, washed in waves of his defiant bellowing, put my hand over his false eyes and crush my mouth over his. He starts to give in as I force myself on him. The resistance sinks away, his struggles becoming slow, sinuous writhing. He groans below me... _

I leave my windows open all the time to make it easy for him to attack me if he ever comes back. I want to be slapped awake suddenly in the middle of the night with a gun pressed to my head, a knife touching my throat, gleaming red eyes shining in the dark and a wicked smile and a tongue licking my lips: hating me, daring me, demanding me.

I want to be an enemy again. I want obsession to meet obsession head on and leave us both shaking and hungry and paranoid, never willing to relax for a second, never daring to take our eyes off each other for even a moment. We, two wild things caged only by each other's constant vigilance.

I want to feel like my life is worth something again; worth fighting for, worth losing, worth LIVING.

The blank sheet of paper with that stupid phrase is still sitting on my desk. Waiting for me to fill it. Empty like all of me. This paper and I are the same. Blank and meaningless unless used.

Write about your dreams.

So I pick up my pen and write.

"I don't believe in dreams."

I pass the paper forward, sit back and close my eyes.

And I slip away from the world, quietly, to be with Zim inside my head.


	2. DAY ONE: The Challenge

**72  
a meditation on the cost of love, Invader Zim style  
by J. Random Lurker**

**Chapter Two: The Challenge**

**DAY ONE: (Dib)**

It comes when I least expect it, of course. The call I've been waiting for, hoping for, fearing for years.

"Hello, -Dib-. I know you're still listening. Maybe you've even been waiting for this. I bet you have been. Are you -there-, human? Are you -listening-? Respond."

DAMMIT, why didn't I hook up the microphone?! I scream at the monitor, knowing he can't hear me, "WAIT, WAIT!" I make myself type out something for the computer to transmit - a generic reply to the signal - and scramble downstairs to get my headset, after setting my computer to start recording the incoming transmission. Tear apart my room, throwing things around desperately, where are they, WHERE..? There! YES! Almost break my leg climbing back up, hands shaking and sweaty as I plug in the last cable, headphones on, microphone activated, HURRY UP INITIALIZE GODDAMMIT, _Zim, keep talking...!_

FINALLY! Connected. Done. I screech into the mike, my voice distorted with feedback in my headphones. I sound nervous and shaking and every inch panicked and desperate. Probably 'cause I am.

"ZIM! Where are you?"

I grin stupidly, hugely, my heart's going a million miles an hour screaming yes god yes Zim YES!

There's a slight delay. Silence. Line static. Hope to God he's just waiting for the computer to encode the reply and transmit.. Slow computer. Three processors out of date. Should have upgraded. Why didn't I upgrade? Slacking. Got lazy. No reason to keep up.

My God, I'm hanging on every second. Have to remember to breathe. Don't think about how insane it is to be attempting to talk real-time with someone who could be four or five galaxies away. Don't think about it.

"Away," Zim's response comes finally, smooth and sly and about as helpful as I expected. "Affairs of state."

_What?!_

"But... heh. Don't worry about that. I'm on my way back now. You should be able to see me pretty soon. I'm already inside the outer edge of your sad little solar system, Dib."

Another long pause.

"I should reach Earth in three days."

Something about the tone of his voice. Smugger than even his usual, more smug than I remember it being. But it's been years. Maybe I've forgotten things. Scary thought. Something... he's hiding something...yeah! The 'I've got a secret and you'll never know it' tone...!

"What are you planning, Zim?!" I demand across the line.

"That's for me to know and you to find out. Three days, human. You have three days."

The computer notifies me of a lost signal.

My heart still races. Slowly I take the headphones off and stand on the roof, stare up at the sky, my mouth hanging open. Something inside me screams with fear and insane joy; I want to run and hide, I want to jump up and down and shout and scream! They're coming! Hell with that, ZIM's coming! It's just like... just like...

**You have three days. **

Why does that sound so much like... a warning? A challenge? A threat?

WHAT's coming in three days? I have to find out!

I'm shaking so bad. Like an addict finally getting a fix again after ten years of forced sobriety and the chemicals flare in my head and the yearning smashes back in, aching and hard, reminding my body what it wanted and why it wanted and how GOOD it felt to be addicted...

And the game's starting up again.

Three days.

_What are you planning, Zim? _

Three days.

I don't have time to waste!

I haven't been so happy in years.

- - -

Alright, have to remember. Have to THINK! What do I do first?

I'm in my room, scanning through old CD-R's burned full of notes, the clock ticking away the seconds on my watch, a timebomb strapped to my wrist. Every second I grudge, but I have to REMEMBER WHAT TO DO.

The notes. The ship! I could just fly up and meet him in the middle!

No. Stupid. Can't risk the ship. My best weapon. Not yet. Okay. I flip through screens. Zim's old base... yeah. Check there first. If he's coming back something might have changed at the site. I can hack his computer. Zim used to have remote monitors all over the solar system. I can use those!

Perfect.

Time to suit up.

- - -

One hour later. Homework forgotten. Sleep irrelevant. I'm eating on the way, filling myself up with sugar and carbohydrates and caffeine in the form of donuts and triple-shot espresso with whipped cream. Steering one-handed, traffic's light at this hour so it doesn't matter anyway.

I pull my little black car up to the side of the street where I KNOW Zim's stupid little house used to be, switch the lights off and peek out through the passenger-side window.

I almost drop my coffee on myself.

It's not there. It's SO not there! It's completely covered by some OTHER stupid little house, a white house with flowery curtains that doesn't have flamingos and creepy lawn gnomes and "I love Earth" flags and a men's bathroom tag on the front door.

SHIT.

I should have BEEN so lucky. Is that a new planted-house of Zim's, or was someone actually stupid enough to build a house right over the spot? Land prices and urban congestion being what they are, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter.

Okay, don't panic. Not yet. I rummage in the bag in the passenger seat and slip on a visor-scanner, training it on the new house. I think I see movement. Let's see if you're really HUMAN or not. I have to KNOW, the world might depend on it!

Wow. Feels good to be thinking that way again. It's who I AM. Not that damn braindead drone sitting behind a desk. THIS is me, the REAL me! Obsessive and freaky and paranoid and God am I grateful for this moment right here, right now. One more hit, feels so good...

I flick through the scanner dial at my ear to X-ray, my vision washing red, crosshairs tracking onto the surface of the house, the unit's processor scanning through, peeling back the first layer, piercing the insulation, looking straight inside. I see figures moving around inside, and taste disappointment and frustration to recognize them as human; one showering, one watching television on a couch. They're not robots or robo-parents; it would show clearly if they were. No kids, at least, but DAMN it. This complicates things.

I rip my gaze down, away from the house, into the lawn. I bet there's still vestiges of the lab there, entrenched in the soil like an ant-colony. Crank up the magnification... c'mon, c'MON...

Ping. Ping ping ping there it IS, I can see metal substrate under the surface of the street, the labs are still THERE...! I'm amazed nobody discovered it while they were laying foundation for the new house, but then again... heh. People can be really stupid sometimes. And lacking in even basic curiosity... if it's unexpected, just get rid of it, don't think about what it might actually BE...

Works in my favor this time, although the house thing is gonna be a REAL problem. I had a bunch of alternate entrances mapped out; maybe I can use one of those. Take another bite out of this cruller; the coffee's getting cold. Pull my laptop across my legs. Check the notes again. Man, I was one hell of an anal kid. Smart kid, too. These intensive notes are gonna save my ass now. It's starting to come back to me, but not fast enough; having these helps a LOT. Thanks, younger-me.

Two possible secondary entrances; one behind the house, one a bit down the street in a neighbor's yard. Great. I'm not crazy about the idea of being arrested for breaking and entering, so we'll try the alternate first and then see how that goes.

One hour, twenty minutes.

- - -

No go. I can only get about twenty feet down into the tunnel with the secondary entrance before I find it blocked, torn open and the end crammed full of dirt. Well, that's back to square one then: the entrance in the backyard of the new house, assuming they haven't covered THAT up too with a patio or something.

I dressed in matte black for exactly this kind of situation. I cover my hands with thin stretchy gloves and pull a mask on as well; not so much to hide my identity or anything, but just because I can't let any skin show. The shadows are gonna be my best friends for a little while; witness me in stealth form!

I take the bag with me, slip out of the car quietly, and dart across the street, sprinting around the edges of the lights thrown down by the streetlamps. Wish I'd had time to make up a decent suit of Dad's lightbending polymer stuff. Again, too lazy. Now, no time... What was I -thinking-?

Well, I know what I was thinking. Still thinking. I might get captured doing this. Not arrested, I hope- that wouldn't be any fun at all- but there's a lot of CABLES down there and I'm out of practice and I've got a lot more mass to swing around than I did when I was a kid and if the computer's feeling malicious enough...

Okay. Stopping that train of thought before it derails me. Geez, Dib! Put the monster back in your pants RIGHT NOW. Right. Hormone switch in the OFF position. (Sure, THAT'S easy.) Safely across the street. No sign of reaction from the front yard or inside the house. Everything's quiet.

Please don't make this have to be harder than it has to be...

- - -

My hands are dirty. It's all I can do to keep from screaming, swearing out loud, and throwing a fit of rage right there in the middle of the house's backyard. It's GONE. The damn entrance is GONE. It's impossible that it could have moved... and I can't risk blasting at it out here in the open. The blast would attract WAY too much attention.

I lift my head up, after grinding the back of my booted foot deep into the lush green grassy turf where that iris-porthole should have been. Glare at the back side of the house as if it's to blame.

DAMN it anyway!

I'm going to have to go in there. I NEED to get in. That's the last place left I can try... and if I have to start blowing shit up trying to blast my way down there, I need some kinda cover to work under.

There're people inside, I remind myself.

I should wait until tomorrow afternoon, bet they both work, could get in QUIETLY with a lot less trouble...

But I can't wait! I look at the watch on my wrist. Wasted nearly two hours already... I don't have TIME to sit around HOPING that they both leave! And I don't know if I can think of anything that would distract them enough to get them out of the house and not shake up the whole neighborhood in the process...

Every so often, I'm grateful I share Dad's insanely bizarre DNA. I haven't had much excuse to use it, but as I've gotten older more of the shall we say 'advanced' capacities of my genetic makeup have opened up... I lift my hand and watch the blue sparks curling along my wrist, dancing between my fingers, lines of Tesla's sacred fire. Then I move fast, finding the junction box at the side of the house. Kill the power first, that'll make it harder for them to react; people act stupid when the dark comes unexpectedly.

I put my palm against the side of the box and take a long breath- steadying myself, concentrating my power, feel it building inside, shining, crackling, tasting lightning on my tongue, there, just a little more ....NOW- BOOM. I overload the box with way more energy than it was ever meant to handle - just a brief, muffled flash of light under my fingers, funnelled into the switch- and feel grimly satisfied as I look up into the windows and see lights die one after another inside the house. I think I hear the man cursing as well.

Flick the scanner back over my eyes again, dial up night vision, and the world becomes outlines of green, rich shades of iridescent green like Zim's skin. He shimmered up close in the right lighting... why am I remembering this now? I haul ass to the back door, punch another quick flare of energy into the lock mechanism and blow its cylinders apart.

I kick my way inside, penetrating the house and almost falling over my own feet on the way in, my heart hammering. No time for panic. No time for thinking about what I'm doing. I gotta take control before they realize what's happening.

- - -

It smells like cigarette smoke and dust in here. I hear the man cursing loud as he stumbles around in the darkness of the house. I don't let it distract me. Gotta move fast, gotta KEEP moving. I still have the advantage of the shadows but it won't last. The second someone finds a flashlight or lights a candle, the gig's up, my night-vision visor'll be SCREWED. My heart is slamdancing inside my chest, adrenaline rush making me feel like God.

Scan the hallway. I see the woman emerging wet from the bathroom, towel held around her body and confused, starting to shout. Good, the towel'll keep her hands too busy to fight back. I think she sees me though, or senses me, because she suddenly SHOUTS with alarm. Shit. I move in fast, pushing up behind her back, twist my foot around the front of her ankle and yank back hard so she's off-balance, then lock my hand over her mouth and pull her shoulders back against my chest as she stumbles. She whimpers. I push my hand to the base of her spine, shoving a small blast of energy into her skin. Her scream goes flat under my glove.

There's a faint sizzling sound and burning smell as the electrical pulse hits her wet body. She falls limp in my hands, muscles spasming. I open my arms and let her body drop to the floor, then step over her.

I press flat to the nearest wall, the steam from the bathroom and my own nervous sweat gathering under my coat create painful humid heat. Between the cursing and the gleaming green vision of the night-vision visor I can see the man- large and rotund, probably twice my size, shit!- bumbling around some drawers in the kitchen. I tell myself careful, kitchens have knives. Weapons. I really don't even want to struggle with this guy, he looks like he could do me damage and I don't have TIME. I dial back over to x-ray, my vision swimming as everything changes from green to red, as skeletons and thin outlines replace solid walls. Better. A lot better. I can hit remotely from here and not even get hand to hand with this guy. He literally won't see what hit him.

The power builds, fueled by nervous brainchemicals, I am a body electric. I'm also nervous as hell. My teeth ache, my stomach burns. I let the shot go free, a screaming blast of bright energy that howls across the room and ...

Shit I -missed- how the hell could I MISS he whips around and yells something and

BLAM.

In that fraction of a second between report and crunch of impact in wall plaster I die fifteen times. Even though the shot didn't get anywhere near me, I still freeze at the explosive hammerbang and my heart jumps over the moon. If anyone HEARD that...

Who the hell keeps a gun in the kitchen? You idiot, you could HURT somebody firing blind don't you know that? I crouch down low behind the wall opposite the kitchen door; it'll cut my mobility but make me a smaller target and I gotta stay calm, make myself breathe, in out in. Loudest sound in the world, my breathing... there he's MOVING, stepping out of the kitchen; I roll forward and lash my foot out swing the heavy reinforced heel of my boot CRUNCH into his left calf and he cries and falls over and the gun skids out of reach along the floor.

And then I climb over him and crouch down on top of him and he smells like dirty sweat and he's swearing. I lock one fat wrist under my right foot and shove two fingers into the back of his neck and blast him hard, harder than I need to but I want this done NOW. The flare of my power throws the dark room into sharp relief for that instant, outlining furniture in pale pink light and sharp black shadow in my x-ray screen. Underneath me the large man grunts and goes into muscle spasm as he blacks out and in my nervousness, I almost let him have it again before I catch myself and slam on the brakes in my head.

I roll off ackwardly to the side and just breathe, make myself breathe, staring at the fallen lump of the 'man of the house'. His stink is all over me, I smell like his sweat. (God, I sound like Zim, don't I?) I laugh crazily in the dark.

It's Zim's fault! You bastard, look what you made me do!

I bet you didn't think I'd do it, did you, but I DID! I DID do it! I HAD to.

Not done yet, the area's not secure yet- I KNOW that. Get up and finish this, Dib, GET UP goddammit.

Yeah.

I feel weak as I stand up, dizzy and drained, my gut churns but I ignore it. It's just adrenaline sickness, my body doesn't like changing gears so fast. It'll pass.

I find the gun and pick it up, take it with me as I step back through the house, calm now, to go back outside and retrieve my bag. I poke my head outside as I'm pulling the bag off the back porch and slipping it over my shoulder, but the night is cool and quiet, I don't hear anything too unusual. Either the gunshot wasn't heard or was ignored, it seems like. Lucky for me.

After another look around, I shut the door behind me. Check my watch again. Almost two hours gone.

- - -

Science has invented a lot of cool stuff, a lot of really useful stuff- hell, my Dad's come up with some real breakthroughs in his time. In my mind though, science is always gonna be one step behind the curve until someone can invent something more universally useful than duct tape.

I love the stuff, and not just 'cause it's sticky and silver. I've always kept a roll or two around, even when I'm NOT busy fighting invading aliens- hell, it's saved my sorry butt more than once through the years.

It's also hard as hell to get out of when you're tied up in it. Heh, here I am strapping up these guys like Egyptian mummies and I'm suddenly remembering Gretchen in high skool and her funky purple hair and how good she was with duct tape. Mm. I can't help it, the sound of tape tearing off the roll makes me kinda nostalgic. Sure, she wasn't an alien or anything, but man, I still learned some... interesting stuff from her. I think I still miss her the most out of all the things I tried after Zim left. She was fun and funny and sexy as hell, but for some reason I can't clearly remember what happened to her. I vaguely recall something about her moving to another state. Most of my memories of her are deliciously tactile.

But she still wasn't Zim. And that's what this is all about.

Stupid alien.

Mm... I think this'll hold unless the big guy hulks out on me. And it doesn't have to hold for too long, once anyway; once I get down into the labs and take control of the security system down there, I don't really care what these two do. They won't be able to get near me.

I pause to map out the current structure of the house in my head, mentally overlaying Zim's original furnishings on the surroundings. The sad thing is he had better taste in interior design than these guys. Retro Americana by way of Hong Kong bootleggers, ugh. My mental map puts one entrance- that blue trash can of Zim's leading to a tunnel down to the equipment hall- underneath a wall. Where the old toilet used to be is now a few feet in from the back door, under linoleum. That seems the better place to try.

Briefly it occurs to me that I'm going to have to drill through at least a foot or maybe even more of cement in the foundation of the house to get to the lab entrances, and my heart just about falls into my stomach. I've never tried anything REMOTELY that powerful with my abilities before. I remember Dad blowing a hole through a two inch wooden door when Gaz and I were kids ... but concrete is even LESS conductive than wood. What I NEED is a jackhammer.

Shit. Don't tell me all this was for NOTHING!

If only there was a gnome still around. If I could tap a probe directly into even one line of wire, I could try to wake up Zim's computer. That thing could drill through the foundation easily... Dammit, I can't THINK right. After the effort of fighting, moving these two to their bedroom and then tying them up, I'm starting to feel shaky. Need more caffeine.

Time check. Two hours, twenty-five minutes.

I wonder if there's any coffee around here?

- - -

Beggars can't be choosers, but this coffee is terrible. I mean, really, really terrible. Tastes like silt filtered through Torque Smacky's underwear after a football game. Not that I would know anything about the taste of Torque's underwear.

Okay, fine. There was that one time. Like I said, I did a lot of fucking around trying to make up for Zim. I fully intend to collect for that, too, when we meet again.

I've converted the house's grimy little kitchenette into my operations center. I'm on the Net, using dialup, so I know there won't be any outgoing calls from here unless I make them. Archaic yeah, but old modems are a LOT harder for Carnivore 4 to dig its claws into- and I need to know that my activities online are secure.

Right now I'm doing two things. I'm pulling up the schematics of this house from the local records file- I got the brilliant idea that this house may be sharing an electrical feed with the same conduit Zim tapped into to power his base, and if I can track down the wiring, I might find an intersection I can use to hook a probe on and wake up the monster in the basement. I'm also monitoring half a dozen different feeds online: got television and police-band scanners going, and I'm hooked into the live camera feed from !NASAplace! in Houston. So far, it doesn't look like Zim's signal has reached anybody else but me, and it sure doesn't look like anyone else has gotten a whiff of it yet. I would have thought the VLA might have noticed -something-, but... Irken ships go far faster than light, so... heh, it's probably that he'll get here before the light from his ship does.

And the more I think about that, the more nervous it makes me. Zim must have been transmitting DIRECTLY to my computer, which means he knew the EXACT frequency of my receiver which means...

DAMMIT! I almost choke on the coffee, slam the coffee cup down on the counter and scramble to the table, start typing FAST. Gotta check my computer's system logs and run anti-invasion script to see if anything's been messed with... and I'm thinking, AGAIN, thank **God** I was smart enough to burn everything onto disc!

And there IS something there, nestled in an directory of archived random junk I haven't looked at in something like a year and a half. A nice shiny new little folder I sure as hell didn't put there. Labeled "HelloDib". I can almost HEAR Zim's smug little voice saying it. Almost FEEL him whispering the words over my shoulder in my ear, that self-satisfied little smirk curling his mouth...

_Hello, Dib..._

I feel suddenly dizzy, a sharp painful sensation building up in my guts. But maybe that's just the coffee burning a hole in my intestines... How the HELL did he get around my system's defenses... ?!

... because I wasn't **running** them! Which the logs are blandly pointing out to me in black and white. According to this, the last time I used them was to cover my butt two weeks ago while I was doing a little poking around NASAplace's design files to pick up the newest changes to the stardrive engine prototype nobody is supposed to know our military's had for the last two years...

DAMMIT! Could I GET any sloppier? So much for Dib the genius-son-of-a-genius- this is what I get for letting my OTHER head do the thinking for me! To say that I'm pissed off at myself is an understatement. To say that I want more than anything to click on that stupid little folder, no matter what kinda brutal trojan-crap Zim's loaded it with, is also an understatement.

I start up my suite of hacking tools and antiviral defenses and system monitors and cue them to completely isolate the folder the -second- I access it. I swallow back a sudden painful lump in my throat, my hands beginning to feel damp over the keys. I should just delete it, I know, I know, I KNOW! Just nuke it so it can't DO anything, nuke it and bleach the drive sectors... but...

But I want to KNOW what's IN there...! And I know he KNOWS I want to know... dammit!

Staring at the screen, I lick my lips anxiously. I'm screaming at myself in my head, but the nice thing is I'm really good at ignoring myself too. _Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. You KNOW better...! Don't be stupid!_ My fingers stroke the touch-mouse to guide the cursor over to the folder icon. Slip the headphones on, too. Finger on the enter key...

You ever been really deeply involved in doing something on the computer and a program you forgot was running makes a wake-up sound that scares the shit out of you because it's abrupt and fifteen times louder than what you were doing? And had it happen while you were wearing headphones...? I JUMP, yelping, and almost fall on my face when my foot tangles up abruptly between the table and chair legs. The laptop slides off the table, bounces off my thigh and clatters over the linoleum. As I catch my breath and wait for my caffeinated stomach to stop spinning, I realize the machine finished downloading this place's schematics.

And Zim is still waiting for me.

- - -

There's a video file, and something else, a file-type my computer doesn't recognize marked with an orange question-mark icon.

He's looking right at me. Tight closeup; just his red eyes, lipless mouth, noseless face. His eyes are full of reflected lights, little squares of color that flicker and change as he talks, glancing down occasionally to review something on a screen below him, then looking back up at me. I stare back, the screen streaked with jumping, erratic jagged white lines that spike as he talks; it forces me to focus hard to understand the words. It's incredible, though. Who knows how far this message traveled to get to me? Just to ME...

**So you've found the file. Good. I expected no less. I bet I can guess where you are now, too. You're at my old base now, or near it, aren't you? **

_Yeah, you got me, Zim._ Pretty predictable, huh? He was the only one who ever really bothered to -know- me well enough to -predict- me. Is it insane to feel glad to be known? I grin at the screen, even in spite of myself ; my face is getting hot. Even while my chest freezes and I feel my breath locking up behind my throat.

He's putting a noose on me, and I'm letting him do it, I know. Give a man enough rope...

**I imagine things there may have changed during my absence. To show I'm not entirely without sympathy for your efforts, I'm going to give you a little encouragement.**

The tips of his fingers appear; steepling before his mouth. His eyes narrow.

**Think of the file I'm attaching as the electronic version of a key left under the doormat. IF you can get into my system, IF you can wake up its dormant central core, then feed it this file, and you may use my machine however you like. Of course, there's not much left down there to BE used... but that's your problem, not mine. Nothing you can do will change anything now anyway.**

He grins. My chest hurts to see it.

**Time's slipping away, Dib... **

End of file.

It takes me a minute or two to remember how to think. I can't concentrate on anything. I just back up the file and play it again, staring at his mouth, letting his voice flay my ears with dirty silk, watching the colors run. His voice makes me hard; makes my dick throb. I close my eyes and breathe it in, breathe in the pain and the wanting.

I slide down in the chair and take my hands off the keyboard, pop the zipper-tab at my collar down.

Fuck the world. I need this.

_-Zim...-_

- - -

_A/N: Yeah, I know, I'm going to hell for this one... jrandomlurker-at-yahoo-dot-com  
_


	3. DAY ONE: Inevitability

**72  
a meditation on the cost of love, Invader Zim style  
by J. Random Lurker**

**Chapter Three: Inevitability** **  
**

**DAY ONE: (Dib)**

Hhnnhh...

No...I'm not proud of myself for that...waste of time... but at least now I can -think- again. How am I supposed to concentrate on saving the world with a raging hard-on sucking all the blood out of my brain? I swear, officer, it had to be done . For the good of all mankind!

Right. Uh-huh. Now zip yourself up and get back to work, freak.

Which I do, but his taunts play back at me, looping whispers just behind my thoughts. _Time's slipping away, Dib..._

I flip him the finger in my head and start typing again. My fingers are shaking.

- - -

3 hours 20 minutes now, and I've FINALLY found the link. There's a wire running from the front porch light that connects to an underground junction that- if it's still THERE- Zim tapped for his primary power supply. Which means, if I stick a hacking probe on it, I just might be able to wake up the Irken computer underground here. I slurp down one last cup of muddy coffee and get ready to do a little manual labor. Let's see.. one of these drawers should have the silverware... Ah, there we go. A good long stainless steel cutting knife. A crowbar would be better, of course, but this should still get the job done.

- - -

Man, this wallpaper smells funny. I put my ear over a crudely executed pink and blue fleur-de-lis on the paper next to the front door, tap the wall, shift around, tap again. According to my recollection of the blueprints the wiring should be right about... here.

It suddenly occurs to me how crazy I must look from the outside. Psycho matchstick-man all in black, nervous eyes and musky skin, stinking coffee breath, wielding a long kitchen knife, leaning back to stab at a shadow on the wall. Hello, Dib, this is your brain speaking... You're officially batshit now, you know that? Yeah, well, fat load of help YOU'VE been so far, headmeats! I can't stop now. I'm in too deep already. You know that.

Anyway, it's not like I **killed** anybody. Not like Zim wouldn't have murdered these people and burned down the house in a heartbeat to reclaim the space if he wanted it. That's the -difference- between him and me.

I don't want to think about this any more.

THUNK! The knife goes in smooth, making a neat two-inch gash through the center of the printed flower. I pretend it's Zim's torso, and start ripping the wall apart.

- - -

Back in the kitchen, I raid for food, inhaling a sandwich while my laptop works black magic in the front room. Ping... ping... ping... wake up you piece of crap computer!...ping... ping... The waiting is driving me crazy! A bitch of a caffeine headache is starting to shove its thumbs up the backs of my retinas; I'm running on fumes and willpower as it is, and the longer this takes, the more second thoughts I'm having. I don't WANT to be having second thoughts, but they just scream at me anyway: What do I do if I CAN'T wake it up? Should I have taken the ship up instead, like I first thought? Is Zim expecting to keep me tied up with this so he can put his real plan in motion elsewhere?

God, I HATE this part, the part where he makes me double and triple and quadruple-guess myself until I can't tell up from down! I HATE it! I can JUST pick up some faint snuffling noises from the bedroom where I dumped the houseowners. Grunting. Bedsprings creaking unevenly. Shit. That means they're awake again, and probably trying to get loose. Come ON, you stupid machine! TALK TO ME!

- - -

Four hours, 30 minutes, and I'm sweating blood. I fused the door locks, knobs and plates together to buy myself a little more time, but I can hear shouting now, the big guy's gotten loose somehow; he's pounding on the door and cursing, and that metal isn't going to hold for too much longer. I realize I don't remember if there was a window in the bedroom or not. Or a phone. The gun's back in my hand while I pace a circuit between the curtained windows and the bedroom door. My brain is gleefully spitting out endless scenarios of police smashing the door down, the big guy grabbing me and snapping my neck like a twig. Every time a car goes by outside I feel my stomach flipping over, and I can barely stop the shaking now. I hear phantom alarms going off. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK. I'm running a mantra in my head, just keep telling myself my laptop is about to talk to me. I make myself believe, while I pace and smell up the front room with my nervousness. It's going to work. It's going to WORK...

And just when I'm ready to drop it and bolt...

**.... urhhhhgh... What do YOU want?**

_YES!_

I RUN to the laptop, watching a window with a spinning one-eyed Irken logo snap open. The bedroom door down the hall makes a distinct CRACK, the noise of wood snapping. For a second I can't get my voice out because I can't FUCKING THINK. "Let me IN! Let me in NOW!"

**Whhyyyyyy?**

_I don't have TIME for this! _ "Because if you don't let me in, I'm gonna get KILLED! Just DO it! Zim said...The FILE!"

That file Zim sent me! The 'door key'! I forgot! Open folder, drag icon, drop file, copying...

SNAP again in the background. More shouting, louder now. Hurry, DAMMIT, HURRY! It only takes a second to complete, but it feels like a hundred years. When it's done, I swear the computer -chuckles-. No time to worry about that but NOW, an hour late, my paranoid side kicks in: _What was -in- that file?_ Why didn't I LOOK? Why didn't I pick it apart...? Because I was too busy jerking off to... _I am royally screwed, aren't I?_

And in my head Zim laughs as he answers me: _You have no IDEA, human!_

The floor begins to shake. Earthquake level shaking, thunder underfoot, hateful rumblings. The blue couch against one wall tilts up, a debris cloud spitting out underneath it, concrete shrapnel and grey dust choking up the air before the thing is thrown seven feet in the air, just FLIPPED OVER shoved aside by a huge clear pink tube from below.

"What the FUCK!?" Oh GOD, I turn and see him stumbling out through the splinters of the broken bedroom door, a mad bull human trying to keep his feet on a wave of rippling concrete. I stare at him; he stares at me, at the ripped open wall, the laptop, the gun, the open tube, the flipped couch. Some part of my brain screams MOVE MOVE MOVE and I grab the laptop wrench it loose leaving sparking wires behind and I run and DIVE, throw myself headfirst into the tube, skidding hard on the cold alien plastic under me and the pressure changes, suction grabbing me by the throat don't know where I'm going don't CARE as long as it's not HERE...!

I hear myself screaming as I fall.

- - -

...I can't see anything, and my neck hurts. The tube spat me out somewhere and I fell pretty hard; kinda got the wind knocked out of me. I just lay here for a second, getting my breath back. I'm not SAFE, I know, but it's a different kind of danger now.

I can feel that I'm in a large space, a large cold open space, on a ... ribbed metal floor. Grunting, I roll over onto my stomach and crawl around, fumbling around in the dark for a few seconds until my hands find the familiar squareness of my laptop. PLEASE tell me you're still working... I punch a key that brings up the screen, casting a small pale blue light into the shadows. It doesn't really let me see anything well outside of a couple of feet, but at least I'm not completely in the dark now.

Where am I? Nothing I -can- see looks familiar... My ears pop, adapting to the new pressure levels as I stand and it hurts hard for a second. Gahh... I must be down pretty damn deep. "Computer?"

It replies with a distinctly smug sounding, **Area secured.** Suddenly lights snap on overhead, one after the other in a long row that seems to stretch out for a mile, not blazingly bright, but enough to make my eyes water anyway. I've never been here before! It's a HUGE space in dark red and purple, some kind of experiment hall.

Spotlights fall on the tubes; they're the first things I can see when my eyes focus. They line the walls to either side, stretching the length of the room, filled with bubbling purple goop. I can't help but stare, memories flooding back of the times I was trapped in one of those things, breathing fluid and banging on the walls, trying to scream at Zim through the glass... at his mercy.

I start breathing harder.

That's when I realize that some of the tubes aren't EMPTY... that there are... oh god. There are THINGS in some of these... dead things. Dead PEOPLE...

And then I see THEM. The two people from the house upstairs. They look... BURNED. There's no fluid in their tubes, the glass is clear...

_Oh GOD._ I drop the laptop and start to run toward them, but a metal arm whips down from the ceiling and grabs my wrist; like it KNEW what I was thinking, what I wanted to DO... They turn toward me inside the glass, they can SEE me...! I start screaming, demanding that they be let GO, but all that gets me is another arm around the waist, pulling my feet off the ground and squeezing until I have to stop fighting or stop breathing. And I KNOW, I KNOW what's going to happen, and I can't do a DAMN THING TO STOP IT...

"You can't do this. You CAN'T...!" My voice breaks, and I hang there and there's nothing I can do.

Except watch. As sick as it is, as horrible as it is, I can't STOP watching, my breath frozen inside my chest.

They don't look at each other, they look at me. Like it's my fault. Like I did this. They bang on the glass, shouting words I can't hear, until they weaken and finally slide down into the floor, unconscious. I feel my own throat constricting.

They suffocate in those fucking tubes.

And then they die. I can -feel- it when it happens. I just watched two people DIE and and I can't stop crying so sorry oh Jesus God, they're dead they're dead they DIED holy FUCK I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry

- - -

A million years have passed since they died. I feel so cold inside. Voice comes out chattering. "...p... put me down."

I cross the floor and make it a few pointless steps before I fall, tripping over my own ankles, crash. I lay there numb, the floor freezing me, my body icing slowly into stillness.

I close my eyes, ready to let the cold in. I WANT it, I DESERVE it... I wasn't going to kill them... I just wanted to get into the base... why did they have to BE there? Why did this have to happen? Why didn't they JUST RUN AWAY!?

_Get up, Dib._

It stings like a bucket of hot water to the face- a sudden ferocious anger boiling up inside.

_Two people died, yeah. And you want to make it three? You want their deaths to be for nothing? You want to see a few billion more humans die just like that? If you do, fine. Lay there feeling sorry for yourself like a loser. Let Zim win. Or you can get UP and do what you came here to do in the first place. What those people DIED to make possible. _

_GET UP. Don't let Zim win. _

_GET UP. DON'T let Zim win! _

_GET UP. DON'T let Zim WIN!_

Somehow... I get up again. Even though now ... I understand. I'm not in control here. Not even a little. It's going to do what it wants... maybe this is all something Zim is controlling from afar. Maybe even my resistance is part of the plan.

I don't know. I don't care.

I'll do what I came here to do. I can't do anything else.

- - -

With grim dread I approach the huge computer terminal at the end of the hall. The screen is bigger than I am, a black hole flanked by three smaller screens to either side; seven baleful black squares, fronted by a wide control console. My barest touch over one of the keys brings the whole system to life; bright green Irken code begins to scroll down each side- monitor, and the central giant warms up with a waking sound that hums loud enough my teeth can feel it, a sound of pure POWER.

"Computer," I say quietly, around the heart hammering pain in my chest. If this is all a script, then I -know- what's coming next, just like I KNEW what was going to happen to those people, because I know Zim, and I know what would bring him back here after so long... I swallow hard before I speak. I almost...don't want to see it. But I have to see it... "Patch into Zim's remote planetary monitors and show me ..." Deep breath. "Show me what's coming."

_Please GOD show me I'm wrong. Show me I'm wrong...._ But I already know.

Even still, I'm not prepared for how terrified I am when I see it.

Every screen, each one labeled with a planet's name in Irken and English, shows the same thing.

All of the outer planets, the great gas giants, are on FIRE.

And every screen is full of ships. Irken ships.

The Armada is coming.

- - -

_(A/N: Whew! Long, intense chapter this was...) _

_jrandomlurker-at-yahoo-dot-com._


	4. DAY ONE: Captive

**72  
a meditation on the cost of love, Invader Zim style  
by J. Random Lurker **

**Chapter Four: Captive**

**DAY ONE: (Dib) **

... I knew.

This is all my fault.

Saturn is burning...

_It's all my fault._

The Massive, flanked by a hundred thousand ships, is lazily carving its way toward Earth through the back end of the solar system.

_They must have brought the whole fleet..._

Ring A warps and distorts. Then it **melts**.

_Make it STOP..._

The rings are gone. Titan explodes under heavy fire, taking humanity's best hope of outer colonization with it. It's true, we never made it that far... but we WANTED to. We were trying so hard. So fucking hard...

... I'm referring to the human race in the past tense...

I know it won't do me any good, but I can't help it. In a second I'm beating the console, wild and random. Planets burning bodies choking buttons flaring and beeping, slap punch kick stop it, stop it, STOP IT godDAMN you STOP IT! I scream myself hoarse and I don't stop until I'm out of breath and shaking and smelling smoke and somewhere I fall down again, sliding down in front of the console and there are tears on my face and the cables slide under my arms and around my chest and slide up my thighs and grip my neck and I just sigh and shut my eyes tight...

I won't fight.

I can almost -feel- his malice in the thick mechanical fingers locked around my neck when the cables haul me off the floor and off my feet. Zim. The same feeling, the shiver of the hairs on the back of my neck, as if he were actually holding me. But that's crazy, isn't it... No, I'm sure of it. I **know**. Zim's got to be here somewhere, he MUST be. A ghost in the machine, watching. Listening. Probably enjoying every second of this.

Another cable-arm swings into my line of sight, three fingers and a laser-lens between them that begins to gleam with sharp pink energy. The length of the cable sways hypnotic, serpentine,shivering eagerly.

I'm going to die.

Everyone's going to die, yeah; but the rest of the world has two more blissful ignorant days. The light from the ships won't reach here until after the Armada's already paved us over. As the only person on this planet who knows enough about the Irkens to really fight them, I probably have a few hours left, if even that. I could try to run- hell, Zim might even let me reach the surface- but what's the point? We -might- be able to hold off a surface invasion, but that's not how this works. They'll just boil us alive from orbit. Short of a miracle, there's nothing that we can do. We have no time. We have no weapons. We don't have anything.

And it's my fault. I let go of the fight, and Zim never did. I deserve to die for that alone.

All I can think about right now is Gaz. Gaz and Dad. I mean, it's human, isn't it? Dad's anti-Santa arsenal and mountain fortress. Been there for years. Goes deep below the surface, almost like a supersized version of this rotten little place. This place and that are probably the only structures on the planet that have a prayer of surviving the bombardment. They can use the weapons there to defend themselves. At least, I could save THEM...

His voice emanates from a speaker hidden somewhere, bounces and echoes off the huge chamber walls. God, I hate it when he pulls theatrics. **Ten minutes.**

One cable unloops enough that I can slip an arm free. Even seperated by billions of miles, we can read each other's minds. He's giving me time, because he knows it won't do any good. The enemy that takes pity on you is the you should fear the most... does the condemned have any final words?

I shove back my sleeve and twist the dial-face of my watch toward my vision, tap a button. A tired pair of eyes squint back at me when the connection's made. "What -is- it, Dib..."

The mechanical fingers at the back of my neck twitch. Just reminding me they're there. I pull in my breath and blurt it out. "Gaz, you need to get Dad and go to the northern stronghold RIGHT NOW." _Just listen to me for ONCE in your goddamn life, shut up and LISTEN, I'm the big brother, DO WHAT I SAY!_

She doesn't say anything, just opens her eyes fully to glare at me. This is my cue to talk fast before she hangs up on me. The cable that was threatening me dips its head and starts moving... slowly slowly going around behind me, oh-so-subtly fitting itself to the back of my head. Nice. He can blow my brains out any time he wants. GodDAMMIT, Zim... ! "I'm inside Zim's base. The Armada is coming, okay? We don't have TIME. It's REAL, Gaz. It's coming." In a panic, I scream out. "Show her, Zim! I don't care! Show her!"

I hear him chuckle. The back of my head is getting warm.

The screen at my wrist flickers into static, then into the image of the Armada. In miniature, in crystal clarity, the Massive punches straight through the heart of Jupiter and... the planet just pops. Like a balloon. All the gases losing cohesion and scattering. The Massive glides smugly through the middle, untouched.

As the image flicks back into our direct link, Gaz is still silent- but her face has lost all color. She just looks at me, wide-eyed. Questions I can't possibly answer flash across her face. How do you know what about you are you coming what am I supposed to tell Dad how can you dump this shit on ME what are YOU going to DO...?

"It's too late." I say in answer to all of them. My voice cracks. I wish I could say goodbye. I wish I could say I loved her. I wish she would say she loved me; I would really like to hear that before I die. But we're not that kind of family, and we never have been. So I say what -needs- to be said. "GO."

She goes.

Bye, Gaz.

The next few minutes pass in a blur. I'm shoved, pulled and shunted, tossed and flung; something always has hold of me, and it just... doesn't matter any more. Eventually I drop to the floor somewhere, rolling to an ackward stop against something smooth and metallic. The cables pull back from me and disappear, letting me pick myself up, catch my breath.

What I've been dumped next to is a ship. It stuns me stupid for a second as I stand there staring, trying to understand why Zim is even letting me SEE a ship at this point. I end up giving this little shrug: _you can never understand my amazing brain!_ he told me once.

At first glance I take the ship to be the Voot Cruiser, but once the surprise clears I realize that can't be the case- this is different. The side engine pods sit differently and the back of the ship is elongated. I walk over and put my hand on it.

Something far, far below me gives a sudden teeth-rattling THWOOM. It's the sound of bad things; nothing GOOD sounds like that... and my first panicked thought is **earthquake!**. The room shakes, the floor VIBRATING under my feet, hard enough to toss me against the side of the ship. A strange, sterile voice begins to shout Irken words; I don't recognize them. I lift my head and shriek over the recording, "ZIM! What the hell was THAT?!"

His voice wraps around me from everywhere. "Your cue to leave." Chuckling. "Unless you prefer to be here when my base collapses in 30 seconds."

_Oh, FUCK you..._

I feel my eyes slitting. "Lemme guess. If get in the ship, you're going to fly me into the sun or something."

"Heh heh heh, suspicious little Dib. It's a very, VERY simple choice. You can get in the escape ship I'm so GENEROUSLY providing you... or you can die."

"Some choice," I growl.

"Choose -quickly-."

I throw my hands up. "Okay, FINE, Whatever...!"

The bubble-glass windshield rolls back to admit me. I climb in, and settle; entirely NOT surprised when the cables swing around the back of the chair and strap me down with about seventeen coils of cabling.

I try really, really hard not to think about how it feels. Not to think about the way my heart rate jumps as the cables squish my body down into the thick, clean leather padding... ... shit, it's not working...

As the windshield closes in front of me I sigh, "I'm gonna end up in the cesspool again, aren't I?"

Zim just laughs from somewhere inside the console. It's a strange laugh, too- not the sawing maniacal cackle I expect, but a soft amused sort of chuckle.

Which worries me more than anything. I wriggle a little as the console lights and the ship begins to move. It manuevers itself through a tube and up, up... finally bursting through from an exit several blocks away from the surface house and rising fast. I watch the city slide out of view with morbid interest.

A short time passes- around 20 minutes. The ship breaks through the stratosphere and slides effortlessly into open space. It's ... well, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it was beautiful. I missed this SO much... and as last hours go, this has been pretty good so far. The cabling is tight but... in a good way; the stars are gorgeous, their infinite gold light pure and unchanging, undistorted by gravity.

The faint whirr of the ship's 'air conditioning' and my own breathing are the only sounds; except for a faint pink glow from the dashboard controls, there's no light. It's weirdly peaceful. I surrender into it, tipping my head back. The sense that Zim is near- that his will is infused into everything around me is incredibly strong, stronger as I let my guard down. I feel... like I'm inside him, somehow. "How are you doing this?"

He sounds mellow now, probably because he knows he's got me. "Oh... do you mean how I seem to be reading your thoughts and seeing everything you do?" The cables around my waist flex tighter- _like he's closing his arms around me_... I bite my lip and try to think about the corpses in the tubes, the outer planets burning...

"I didn't take all my monitoring devices away with me when I left, you know. A few hints put you on the track I wanted. And from the moment you entered my base you entered ME..."

My face goes hot, but my brain sparks, making a connection. "The file in the laptop!"

"You begin to get the idea. Yes, that file contained... shall we say... a piece of me. From there I spread when you so kindly downloaded it directly into the central processor. From there I retook the entire base, able to see your every move. I knew you'd want to break in once you knew I was returning."

"You're in this ship then too." I get it. "Wow, I really fell for it, didn't I?"

"As I knew you would." A cable slides delicately around my neck, squeezes down... "And now I control you, too."

An arm unfolds from above me and seals a padded plastic cup over my nose and mouth...

- - -

I wake up in the dark, with a sore throat and my hands tied behind my back. Some kind of metal harness holds my wrists and arms and wraps across my chest in thick bands. I can't smell anything weird and don't feel like throwing up so he must have used halothane instead of nitrous or ether... geez, it's bad that I actually know the difference between airborne sedatives, isn't it? It's probably good that I slept though; my head is clearer than it's been all day. I don't think I could have been out too long; Zim would not let me sleep through the destruction of Earth, I'm pretty sure.

I have all my clothes on, and I have a -brutal- erection. I'm hoping I get a chance to beat Zim to death with it.

I find I can move and stumble up to my feet, but I still cam't see. I walk until I bump into something- one pace exactly. Ow. Dammit, my NOSE... I turn, and wiggle my hands so I can feel the surface. A cold smooth, featureless wall. Mmph. Must be a cell. I turn around again, not sure if I can't see because there are no lights on or because I'm blindfolded, and put my cheek against the metal. I feel more than a little stupid, rubbing my face against the wall like this, but after a couple of nudges I can see light, so I keep going.

Huh. It wasn't worth it... It's a cell, all right. A tiny one, too, maybe 7 by 4, white and sterile and completely featureless. I can't identify a light source. I can't even see the outlines of a door, or an opening in the ceiling. There is one four-inch circular shuttered-grate that appears to be an air-vent.

I frown and put my ear to the metal, to see if I can hear anything. But there's nothing. It could be insulated. I strain onto my tiptoes and peer through the tiny grate. I can't feel it, but apparently the box is moving because I can catch snatches of lights passing by beyond.

I brace my back against one wall and lift a leg up, kicking at the featureless whiteness. "ZIM! Zim, you STUPID LIZARD! LET ME OUT! DO YOU HEAR ME? LET ME OUT!" BANG. BANG. BANG! The metal thunders darkly under each blow of my boot's thick rubber heel. I try all four walls, spinning around and kicking each one in turn. I bang on the floor too for good measure.

Nothing happens. Well, not NOTHING- now the walls are dirty with bootprints. And now my throat REALLY hurts.

Right then, one side of the box suddenly pops open - the seams were in the corners, I see- and a small horde of tiny, determined-looking Irkens in strange armor reach inside and yank me out. They wrestle me to my knees, guns and sharp-ended staves poking my ribs and trained on the back of my head, shouting incomprehensibly. I feel like Gulliver, but I don't think they'd get the reference.

As much as I can without moving my head and pissing off my guards I look around, but it only adds to my confusion. They've brought me to a ... lounge? There are tables here, tables and chairs all in slick, retro-future curved white; white tile floors and a gigantic monitor covering most of the wall.

There's a figure sitting in one of the chairs; I can see the back of his head, his antennae, the rest hidden by the chair back. Is it Zim? I feel my blood pressure rising at the thought...

After my guards are convinced I'm settled and immobile, one of them- must be a captain- breaks away and approaches the figure. His antennae flickers as he speaks, then bows. He moves back to me and flaps his hand, barks something at his men. They eye me warily, but step back.

The figure in the chair sets down a drink on the table. I gasp in surprise, recognizing the gauntlet on his hand.

Flashback to a few years ago: the first time I ever saw the Irken Tallest in person. Zim had gotten in some kind of trouble, and he'd left orders for his crazy little robot Gir to contact their leaders. They were ... bizarre looking to say the least. Big buggy red and purple eyes, absurdly breakable waists that looked like naked bone in armor, rounded chests, pencil-thin arms ending in giant round white striped gauntlets. And they FLOATED there, staring blankly at me while the robot babbled about something or other. None of us could understand each other.

I shake myself out of the recollection. This figure is probably Tallest Red, then...the stripe on the gauntlet matches. We're not gonna get very far if we can't speak each other's languages.. and where's Zim, anyway? He should be here GLOATING at me with his zipper teeth grinning and rubbing his claws together in anticipation of my horrible painful doom...

The Tallest gets up, hovers out from around the chair, and just... looks at me, linking his arms behind his back, thoughtful. I glare back in return- what does THIS guy want? and try to ignore the cramps moving through my shoulders and forearms from the strict restraints.

The Irken slips an emaciated finger under my chin, lifting my head. And then all the rest of me. I feel myself staring. ONE FINGER, and he's pulling my entire body upright, off the floor, off my FEET... over his head... with just one finger that looks like it'd break if you breathed on it.

I had no -idea- the Tallest were so strong. I hang there, bound and balanced on a finger-tip. I get the message. He could probably kill me with that one finger, too...

Then, then... as he looks at me with that strange interest, he suddenly opens his mouth and smiles. A zipper-toothed gleeful smile.

"Did you MISS me, Dib?"

- - -

_ A/N: BWAHAHAHAHAH!! cough...ahem. _

_Some truly excellent fan-art for 72 has been produced: see **gorogoro**'s stuff at deviantart! _

_Thanks to everyone for their patience. I tried to Nano in November, but that didn't go so well as work suddenly accelerated. As a result, I put off doing any fanfiction for that month... but hopefully this chapter was worth the delay. _

_jrandomlurker(at)yahoo(dot)com_


	5. DAY ONE: Closer

**DAY ONE: DIB**  
**HOUR: SEVENTEEN**

Zim pulls me closer on his one damn fingertip to that rotten zipper-tooth smile as if I were weightless, were NOTHING. He regards me with insectile amusement, red eyes blood-bright. I can smell his breath, cool and sterile. 

Closer. 

I have to kill him. I'll never have another chance like this, this close... 

**Closer. **

My face is getting hot, my world shrinking. Tunnel vision to the extreme; I can't see anything except his mouth, the triumphant smile. His teeth parting slowly, hint of tongue behind. 

_Just DO IT already! Kill me, kiss me, SOMETHING!_

Power builds inside me, fueled by the tension, builds up in me until even my TOES are full, my skin just barely holding it in. Hold on, hold on, hold on... 

...and at the last second, just before it's too late, he jerks his head back and snickers. 

"...You'd enjoy it too much." 

If my hands weren't strapped down behind solid metal I'd strangle him. I won't be able to hold the charge much longer and I HAVE to touch him, have to be touching his skin... I need it. I need to FEEL him burn. After ten years, and all the shit he's put me through... ! 

I struggle to form words over the angry buzzing glow in my head but I can't get anything coherent out, just a whimper. 

I can see the sarcasm in his eyes: _oh very WELL_, with bile... but something breaks in him too. Having me, having his triumph, he can't wait any more. He never WAS any good at being PATIENT... 

... so he yanks me back to him and shoves his big grinning mouth on mine and kisses me so hard it HURTS. 

He tastes impersonal, latex and sterility, but there's nothing impersonal about this. It's bruising. Sadistic and aggressive and cruel; everything I ever imagined it would be like if the walls broke down and he HAD me, helpless like this, at his mercy. 

No, it's -better- than I imagined. Worth dying for. I give him his victory; I let him hear me breaking. He makes a low amused sound and just pulls me closer, slips a heavy gauntlet around the base of my back so that my chest is crushed tight against his armored carapace. 

My heart slowly turns itself inside out. 

I can't even -pretend- to deny it any more. God help me, I -love- Zim. 

But the power's there, pent up and too painful to hold now... 

I let him have it. ALL of it: the silent scream I've been carrying around for a decade FINALLY taking voice in waves of raw blue force. I love him. But I want him to BURN. 

It's almost suicide. I hit him with everything I have, more than I have, so much that I start to feel the edges of my world going black. Black and blue... there are blue sparks. I hear them popping, smell him burning, taste smoke on my lips. His mouth goes all funny and he tries to scream but I hold it, hold HIM with my mouth and drive electric needles deep down hard into his flesh. 

A sudden painful shock accompanies the detonation of the metal bands around my arms and chest. My clothes smoulder. I hear a few shrapnel bits clink against his red round chest armor. 

He grunts and flings me hard into one of the nearby chairs then brushes his claws over his mouth. The lower half of his face is blackened, smoking. Blood drips out of the corner of his left eye, pink and viscous. He's furious as he whirls on me, long tall body jerking with random, spastic muscle twitches. 

The guards rush toward him and me but he howls something- sounds like it hurts a LOT just to SAY it- and swipes a claw savagely in the air. He faces me, gasping. 

I feel sick and shaky; completely drained, with my vision going in and out of focus. I won't be able to put another charge like that together again for... some time. 

I'll probably be dead long before that. 

"My armor..." Zim wheezes, spitting blood, "... is insulated. I EXPECTED as much from you. Can't do it again though, CAN you, Dib?" 

Guards grapple me again, yank me into the middle of a knot of tiny angry bodies. I swear they SWARM like bees. I could try to throw them off, my arms are free, but I'm too woozy for it. A few leftover sparks snap here and there when they touch my skin. It just makes them dig in harder, and their claws are sharp as cats. 

Zim collects himself, drifting back too close again. I watch the burned parts of his skin slowly crack and bleed... but he doesn't even seem to notice, or doesn't care. His long fingers scissor open and close around either side of my chin, jerking my head up again. 

"Do you know how the Tallest are initiated into their glory, Dib?" His voice is conversational, almost whimsical- all the more hideous coming out of his ruined face. 

I can't shake my head, but he doesn't care what I might say anyway, because he carries on a moment later. "It's said... when the candidate for Tallest is selected..." He pauses, grinning blood. "That the candidate's thumbs are removed. A Tallest should be able to rule the Empire with only two fingers. A strong Tallest never cries out." 

One of his fingers strokes along my cheekbone. 

There is a horrible, dangerous pause; the kind that means immense pain is coming. 

"Of course, I wouldn't know. I never had to go through that..." He links his gauntletted hands behind his back and drifts away from me. Instinctively, I start struggling now. The guards start locking down on me and someone, two of them go for my hands, gripping my wrists hard, grasping my THUMBS... 

His voice breathes in my ear from a tiny body pressing up hard against my back all at once: "Does it hurt?" 

SNAP.

Clearly, I would not have been a good Tallest. 

I can barely hear the Irken being barked around me over the pain. I can only just make out Zim's voice, Zim's voice shouting from twenty directions at once, shouting words I can't make out, grabbing at me, little hands yanking my hair and ragged clothes and arms and pulling me, pushing, half dragging me through colored-light hallways that all blur together in my mind until I reach the end, the sterile too-bright white room with the long table and the 'doctors'... 

More talk, more orders I can't understand from voices that all sound like Zim. 

At the end of it all, bound and naked, I'm put on cold scanners, probed and injected and tagged with alien devices fused to my skin and I can't do anything, ANYTHING to stop it. 

And all that goes through my head is that old, old cliche: 

_Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it._

- 

jrandomlurker(at)yahoo-dot-com. 


	6. DAY ONE: No Threat

**72  
a meditation on the cost of love, Invader Zim style  
by J. Random Lurker**

I wonder if Dib ever even considered the possibility that Zim was bullshitting him. I mean, it's the first thing I thought of when I saw his transmission. Dib's so fucking gullible anyway. All you'd have to do is rig up a convincing looking graphic, some flashy planet explosions and some Photoshopped space ships, and the idiot would totally lose his mind.

That was what I thought it was when I first got here anyway. Figured it was Zim pulling some shit. Figured I could slap some sense into Dib- like I was ever scared of Zim or his 'mighty Irken weapons'? -Please-. The moron doesn't have enough fire in his brain to light a candle.

I'm not willing to say I was wrong. Nothing's proven otherwise yet. But... daaaaamn.

This street is a mess. Cops are everywhere. Fire fighters pump massive amounts of water into the ruins. People are milling around on the street, in bathrobes or standing behind opened car doors, staring at the huge pillar of sick black smoke pumping out into the sky from the lot that used to be Zim's. The air is hazy, brown and dirty. The street's turned into a spiderweb, huge cracks torn up in the ground, house faces splintered in a radius all around. And yet, people are trying to slide nearer to get a better look at the damage. Why do people always move TOWARD accidents instead of running away from it? What genius programmed that instinct into us? Makes me think God is a miserable designer with a bad sense of humor.

There's Dib's car, all right; I recognize that clunky black piece of shit parked across the street from Zim's old place. It's tipped over, and the windows are blown out. It's inside the cordon zone, and I don't feel like arguing with a cop to try and get to it. Too many questions, that would be:

Yeah, hi, Officer Dumbass, my stupid brother probably caused that explosion, do you mind if I search his car? No, don't arrest me...

The hell with THAT. Dib probably either left nothing useful behind or it was ruined in the explosion.

Another fireball- ooh, pretty!- goes off fresh in the house next to the burning lot that used to be Zim's. I hear screaming, some girl's voice. Firemen split off, rush over that way. Some uniformed asshole with a bullhorn is shouting something to the crowd about a gas main exploding and that the area is dangerous. No shit. Does that explain the miscolored purple metal shrapnel blown all over everyone's yards and rooftops too?

Staying here is pointless. If Dib's at the bottom of that thing, they'll find him eventually. For all I know, Dib blew up the thing himself, then ran like hell and is hiding out somewhere. The next time I see him, I'll punch his goddamn teeth in for messing up my Friday morning.

I have to get to work.

- - -

Stupid, stupid, stupid Dib, my brain is chanting, while I drive myself to the east wing of Membrane Labs, wave my electronic key past the eyespy, park in the usual spot- 7G- and get the body armor out of the trunk.

Best. job. ever. Yeah, I work security here. Back when we were kids, on Career Day I met up with a security guard type from the Organization. You could even hear the capital letter when he talked about it. I guess that's what the machine picked for me. Damndest thing, it turned out to be EXACTLY my kinda job. I get to wear cool armor, bark orders at people- and they have to listen to me unless they like getting their faces blown off by the experiments around here.

Nothing sweeter than having people OBEY. Not that I EVER abuse the power or anything. Heh. Nah, really- if I pulled crap like that Creppler- he's the Sector Chief for this wing- would pop a cap in me, so I toe the line. But I've got keys to the weapon cache...cue the evil laughter.

Time to go report in at East Ops.

Stupid Dib, this is Zim we're talking about. ZIM.

Like he'd ever be a threat.

- - -

When I get to Ops, there's some kind of commotion. I notice a bunch of the squad - my squad, I notice, Zik and his brother Zak and that swarthy Mendez and Croy and Blue- all clustered around the big doors leading to the Ops center, where we monitor the cameras that guard the grounds. There's a lot of talking, loud talking. I can't help but speed up my pace. The last time we had this much excitement at Ops was when we had the naked protestors trying to barricade the complex entrance...

And Creppler's there. I hear him barking, sounding hoarse and angry. "Back off! Back off! Someone run an intercept on Gaz..."

"Intercept me on WHAT?" I demand, pushing up- since when do I, the goddamn subsector chief, get the run around treatment on ANYTHING?

Almost everyone turns at the sound of my voice. They look pale, and in various states of confusion. Mendez and Blue step over and block me from getting into Ops or looking at the door.

Oh fuck, I think to myself, something's happened to Dad. These guys are bad asses- it's what I like about them. They don't get mushy, they don't get emotional, they don't take it seriously. They wouldn't be acting like this unless...

Like I'm gonna sit here and let them coddle me while something's happening to Dad! No way; I start pushing on them. "Get the FUCK out of my way," I hiss, feeling my heart start inching up my chest.

Zak shakes his head. He looks kinda green, actually. And the pity I see in his eyes feels like fishhooks in my chest. "You don't want to see this."

I give him the old glaring eye, damn near kick him in the balls, and repeat. "Get. the. fuck. out. of. my. way." I am GOING to doom you ALL if you don't tell me what's going on right NOW!

And Creppler sighs. "Blue, Mendez, let her in." To hear that sound in his voice... I've seen the man under stress. I've seen the man mad enough to bite through steel pipe- he probably could, with those metal teeth and all-.. but I've never heard ... pity.

This is bad. This is really bad.

Murmuring uncertainly, looking at each other, they let me through.

And I see what's on the screens.

- - -

He's here. On every screen. Pale and bruised and looking right at me, at the human race, strapped to a table. Surrounded by tiny little green things in a white operating room.

He's looking at me.

_"My name is Dib. They want you to see what's going to happen to me. They want you to believe this is going to happen to all of you. They want you to see this and be afraid."_

And the Irkens rip him apart. Tighten the straps across his back and start cutting. He's still conscious. Screaming. They show him every fucking organ they cut out of him. I think they ask him what it is in that stupid babble of theirs.

He's still trying to save us while they disembowel him. He shouts instructions with his last breaths.

_"Hide underground. Water hurts them. Two days. There's still time."_

He knows they're filming him. I guess they figure anything he could say wouldn't make a difference.

When he dies, they turn his head toward the camera, so that he's looking at us. They take his blank eyes out.

I hear someone vomiting.

It takes me five minutes before I realize it was me.

- - -

A/N: Wheeeeee!

jrandomlurker (at) yahoo dot com


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